My First Olympic Weightlifting Meet

I did it.

I am now an official weightlifter, with an official score, at an official sanctioned weightlifting meet!

For the short story: Walked in with extreme fear and intimidation, made my weight class I was hoping for, missed both of my opener lifts, cried a little, didn’t try to PR, took home some bronze, and had an amazing experience!

For the longer story, read on!

This was my first time training for, and competing in an Olympic weightlifting meet, and while it seems like a very simple event on the outside, I learned quite a few things in the last couple weeks and during the competition itself. This post summarizes everything you need to know about the basics on how a meet works, but I’d rather use this space to talk about me, obviously. 😉

The Weigh-In

I knew I was going to need to compete in the 63kg weight class, as I had no intentions of dropping weight for a first-time meet (and I haven’t weighed the equivalent of 58kg in quite some time, nor did I want to intentionally have to gain weight to lift in the 69kg class).

After some unnecessary stress and worry, I just cut out sugar for the week, consciously ate a little less carbs, and ended up weighing in a 62.0kg. Perfect! This put me in a class of three other girls competing (guaranteed to place…), but then another girl didn’t meet her weight class, so I was now in a pool of four.

I took a quick walk across the street to Tim Horton’s and treated myself to a celebratory blueberry muffin.. 😉

Strategizing Lifts

The goal here wasn’t to PR, but rather successfully hit all of my lifts with “white lights.” What would count in Crossfit may not necessarily count in an Oly meet, thus training 1RMs are not necessarily the same as a competition PR.

Based on my training, confidence level, and considering it was my first meet, my coach set my opening snatch at 41kg (about 90% of my max, though my initial thoughts were to start lower, but he suggested not to make such a big jump between lifts) and opening clean and jerk at 52kg (88% of my max – I have been having a crazy hard time with my jerk lately!). The plan was set to perform my snatches at 41kg, 42kg, 43kg (ending at 94.6% of max), and clean and jerk at 52kg, 53kg, 54kg (to end at 95% of max).

Though clean and jerk used to be my favorite lift, snatches have skyrocketed above them in the loves of my life list, so I was more concerned about my snatch performance than clean and jerk, especially given my struggles with jerking.

Warm-Up Room

I am pretty thankful that the owner of the strength/conditioning gym I have been dropping in to lately was willing to help me determine my warm-up lifts. Something that I wasn’t even thinking about was how and when to warm up. Based on what the other girls were lifting, I could have ended up, and actually did for a couple lifts, following myself. This meant that my weights were sequential and no other girl was lifting at that same weight before the weights went up.

He pretty much calculated every warm-up rep, when I needed to sit, stand, lift, RELAX, BREATHE (I have quite difficulty with this.. for doing doubles and singles, my heart rate was quite elevated).

Snatch

From the picture of the platform above, you can see how intimidating the stage was for this event. While I did have an amazing support group who came to cheer me on, the audience was still made up of plenty of people I didn’t know.

Not knowing what to expect, I went out there to do my opening snatch. Something felt weird when I approached the bar.. subtle, but something just wasn’t right. I was slightly panicked and tried to re-adjust but I immediately lost my confidence, as shown in the lift.

To fail an opening lift is soul-crushing.. annnnddddd then came the tears…

After a quick pep talk as the two-minute clock quickly ran down, I had no choice but to get back and do it again.

PHEW!

A much more committed, confident lift at 41kg. I opted to only add one kilo rather than attempt 43kg, and it felt great!

My confidence was restored and I was feeling pretty good.

Clean and Jerk

Despite soliciting some extra help the couple of weeks leading up to the meet, my jerk at 88% of my max still has just felt funky. You know how you have those lifts sometimes where you go to jerk and it’s more of a jerk and press? Where you almost get the jerk, but have to put some extra effort to lock your elbows out and it feels super uncomfortable? Those types of jerks don’t count in Olympic weightlifting. It has to be solid.

So with the bar loaded at 52kg, I went out there..

Ugh.

To fail both opening lifts, which are supposed to be easy, comfortable, guaranteed hits.. so discouraging and frustrating!

But this time, I did not cry. 😉

I sucked it up, chatted with my coach, he gave me a similar pep talk, to relax, breathe, take my time, understand failed lifts happen, just refocus and move forward. So, let’s try that again.

That bar flew up there so fast and my jerk felt so good that I dropped the bar before the judge told me to put it down (a requirement that my coach told me so many times before), which technically makes it a red-light lift. I was so excited though!

My final attempt was immediately following at 53kg, again, not quite close to my max (~56kg), but I did not want to fail. I could have played some sort of game in which I jumped to 54kg, giving another girl an opportunity to lift before me and a change for more rest, but at this point I was feeling in the zone and wanted to just add and be done.

Easy.

I felt SO STRONG. Maybe it was because it was only 93% of my max, but I wanted to go home and attempt to PR at that point! 😉

The Podium

At the end of the event, I was called up to claim my third-place finish and some shiny bronze bling (but darn the girl who didn’t make her weight class; otherwise I’d be in second! 😉 )! Just kidding.. I made some new friends in this experience!

Overall, this meet really wasn’t nearly as scary as I thought it was going to be, and I learned so much about the sport, the strategy, and about myself.

I was told there is no crying in weightlifting and I know I need to manage my negative emotions a bit better if I do fail a lift, but everything else I have learned is pretty invaluable.

I cannot wait to compete again!